I wake really *#@$&$* early. My job has a lot of East Coast clients, so living in Arizona means I have to start work two hours earlier than most office jobs to match. So I open my window… and am welcomed by the droning sounds of lawnmowers and leafblowers. Can you find zen in the modern annoyances?
You would think this would be a weekly problem (my complex mows our lawn on Wednesday), but in my case, it’s daily. I live next to a golf course (public – I’m not in a gated community) so they have to get that grass to a razor sheen with their Mower After GOD! ™ and drive around the 20-acre plot with that beast before the slightly less insane retirees get to the course to start their tee time.
This sound – even when not near my townhouse – is a constant drone for a good hour and a half right as I’m starting my day. During the summer, this is less of a concern, because in Arizona we can’t open our windows at 5 am because it’s still 90 degrees then. However, fresh air is a wonderful thing, and in September it was finally cool enough to open the windows for the first couple hours of the day.
Now that I have the setup, can I get in the contemplative mood to enjoy my morning work routine with the leafblowers going? Yes. It’s a simple issue of mind over matter; “if you don’t mind, it’s doesn’t matter!” 🙂
Okay, it’s a bad joke, but it’s true. When I practiced meditation, I went to the multi-faith chapel at the hospital I worked at, because it was the perfect quiet space. Only one problem – they were doing construction on the floor above. So every minute, you’d get some grinding sound. Did I give up and go back to lunch? No. I started to use the grinding sound as my meditative focus and it worked great. Since I expected – now needed – the sound, it was welcome and allowed me to focus better.
Of course it’s not like I have a choice. If it wasn’t the leafblowers, it’s the cars on the highway-pretending-to-be-an-interstate 2 miles away, which you can hear all the traffic on a clear day. Or someone will have a traffic accident within a three mile radius and you’ll hear all the emergency vehicles. So embrace your modern distractions… because honestly, you don’t have much of a choice. 😀
Am I off track here? Have you embraced the distractions to find peace? Or have you found more effective ways to block out the noise? Let me know in the comments below!
Albigensia Press 
Howard Leight gun muffler headset works great. 😛 😀
Not as many as pre-pandemic, but increasing amounts of jet noise overhead the last few weeks as the schedules increase a bit. Landing at MSP they’re overhead at maybe 2500 feet, taking off is actually noisier even though they’re higher. I’ve grown accustomed to it and since I’m an avgeek, it’s okay with me.
My brain is great at filtering everything if I need to focus. But my kryptonite is our PA system. It’s random and distracting. When we hear the chime, we have to stop to make sure that it’s not an emergency announcement. When it goes off during my lunch break, I feel like screaming. So I use a quiet room for lunch.
😂🤣😂
In the summer, we always refer to lawnmowers as “dinner music”, because they always start up, just as we sit down to dine outdoors on our deck. We need more Zen mowers.
Great articles. I’ve never been a fan of leaf blowers and wouldn’t use one as raking is quieter and more effective but I understand your point. Some days I can ignore or even transform annoying situations or noises and some days it is more of a challenge. I used to go for walks at 4 am in So AZ to avoid the heat but also had to avoid random golf balls at the local golf course, even at that early hour.
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